There is nothing like getting ready to go out. I have loved it ever since I was a teenager. From the excited first time I went to a school disco, to the cinema with my friends; to just cycling round the block, or the nervous exhilaration of a house party, I have always been one to luxuriate in the process. Long, long baths ( I can let myself stay in for two hours if I don’t notice the clock); clothes washed and neutrally nice-smelling in advance; bath and hair products coincided with deliberation (how many a scented outfit is ruined by someone’s wrongly chosen, overly strongly fragranced shampoo / conditioner or an overly resonous synthetic fabric conditioner?)
No, you have to think about it all, get it all right in order, then, to have that delectable sensation of going out into the night smelling good, when you know full well in your soul that all the air surrounding you smells delicious, that you are a talking, walking, scent sculpture.
I love this feeling. I always have.
I love the instinctiveness of it. And also the precariousness………… (how awful when you get it wrong and rue the scent the whole night long, as if you were trapped in the wrong body….): mistakes that can be a strange kind of agony and purgatory for the smell sensitive.
To know what you will be wearing in advance ? Or to choose intuitively from your collection when you are out the bath, wrapped in towels and bath robe, standing in your bedroom: olfactory art waiting to happen – a beautifully clean and ready blank canvas?
Myself, I will have usually chosen in advance – hence my choice of soaps and bath oils, which once selected will usually brook no opposition (you can’t use something vanilla in the bath if you are going to be wearing Nº19 straight afterwards), and this Saturday evening for this indulgent, ridiculous sybarite it was most definitely going to be cardamom essential oil, with some virgin coconut oil also for skin suppleness, because I was exhausted from the week’s teaching and there is nothing else quite like it when you need to be reinvigorated. Unlike rosemary, which gives me physical cardio-jolts when I am in the water (and sometimes I want that), or ylang ylang, which makes me go all lopey and excited but can sometimes make me come out in hives, or black pepper (great for skin, but it can leave you a bit red-faced), cardamom, an essential oil that is less easy to find than your usual lavenders and lemons but worth looking out for if you like the smell of the spice, is an absolute tonic. It smells beautiful, elevates your nerves, but doesn’t overly scent the skin; just a slight, green, tropical tang.
Right. Out the bath, finally.
Now, there was never going to be any doubt that tonight’s main event was going to be a recent recycle shop rediscovery, La Rose De Rosine, which I bought for a song in a Yokohama cheap second-hand emporium (unopened: what was it doing there?) and snapped up in a jiffy as I love the box. Les Parfums De Rosine are a lovely perfume house, I think, with their tiny, rose-galore boutique at the Palais Royal, but for some reason I haven’t talked about them much here on The Black Narcissus (I’d like to know what you think of them, actually). In some ways, the sheer number of perfumes, all rose-themed, that exist in the line now have induced some kind of apathy in me, and I suspect in a lot of other people, as well. There are only so many Rosines you can keep up with, and yet almost every one I have smelled has been good, from the intriguingly gruff but elegant Rose D’Homme, to the lemony, oceanic breeze of Rose d’Eté through to the naughty, more animalic, eyelashed snogs of Les Secrets De Rose.
In some ways, though, the original scent from those fancy Parisian rose people is still the best. The company’s first perfume from 1991, La Rose De Rosine, was always the anomaly in the line-up, which on the whole has tended to smell quite sheer and pretty. La Rose is anything but: this is a party gatecrasher of a scent; warm, extravagant, and very deliberately fun. If it were a white flower it would be Loulou; a violet, Aimez Moi. Though ostensibly a rose perfume (with a gorgeous, initial dollop of the finest Bulgarian rose absolute) this has the heft and the texture of the aforementioned scents and their party-loving tendencies. Thick, sweet, decidedly balsamic, the engorged, fat cheeks of the rose are encircled with a velveteen collarette of the most velvety violets and a lick of something animalic and powdery, like some mad old bat lunging for you at the opera. The best is to come, though: a decidedly pleasing late-skin stage of benzoin, tonka bean and Peru balsam that make the scent, despite its juggles with roses, essentially an oriental, and an oriental that to my surprise I love myself in and can’t get enough of. I’ve got through a quarter of the bottle (eau de parfum – quite strong) in a week.
For some reason this evening, though, I have definitely decided to have a co-star in the body’s perfumed layout (the layering dilemma: f*** it, after a week of trying to be nice and conservative smelling at work in my suit, I need to let rip tonight and just one perfume, even in excess just won’t do I’m afraid), and so I have to decide, crucially, now, the order in which to apply these mothers.
Which to be sprayed on my t-shirt (we are to be going to a club, hilarious considering the fact that I can’t even walk properly, never mind dance, but I did in the end manage to just jiggle on a stool and clap along like the token handicapped person), and I know for sure that I want to have one of the two on skin; the other on my clothes.
In the end this one turned out to be Bakhoor Al Arais by Swiss Arabian; a lovely, sweet, almondy, floral oudh thing that I bought very cheaply in Dubai and which I instantly felt a connection with for some reason (possibly because, with its musky intimations of floral saffron, it reminded me of a Montale scent I bought for myself a few summers ago, Velvet Flowers). It wasn’t spectacular, but it just felt delicious; cheap in a good way; right. I love the Arab perfume culture, how the second I arrived at Dubai airport the hunks at the security checks emanated sweat and delicious (if extraordinarily intense) oudhs, how every man, woman and even child seemed to be spraying themselves with perfume, how most of the traditionally Arabian perfumes couldn’t be further from the standard sports deodorant smells you get in the west if they tried. Ah, the lushness, the richness, the perfume. (The PERFUME!!! They get it… )
So I am now dressed (but let’s not get into that – there is a very meagre selection available for me in the ‘wardrobe’, a word that for me, in any case, applies to my perfumes), as Duncan, ever enviably, slips into an immaculate, dark blue, floral shirt he has just bought – but then I was never really a clothes person, so that will have to be that). But at least they smell good, and I like simplicity in my garb anyway, and for god’s sake, if I dressed as flamboyantly as I smell, surely I would just be attacked.
I stand, aureoled and excited on the landing upstairs, with rich, suffocating puffs of scent; roses, balsams, almonds, my hair (washed with Shiseido’s Camellia oil shampoo and conditioner, for your information), quite satisfied and contented with my selections.
But there is one more thing.
It was funny, in that airport. There were so many oudh-based scents from all the western perfume houses, all these ‘special edition’, ‘rich club’, ‘noir’, ‘velvet’ exclusive scents from everyone from YSL to Dolce & Gabbana to even Boss and Dunhill that I simply couldn’t bear to smell any more, especially when there were so many ‘native’ oudhs (at about a sixth of the price) on offer as well, and the whole thing was starting to feel a bit like lugging coals to Newcastle. I had been planning to do a ‘Dubai exclusive’ post, replete with photos, for this blog for all the oudh lovers out there, but in the end I was just so exhausted (I arrived at almost 1am) that trudging along with my notebook, half-heartedly sketching portraits of perfumes that all basically smelled the same held almost no appeal (sorry).
Instead, I found myself far more fascinated by the shop that was selling soaps, shampoos, deodorants and hair creams, all of which struck me as somehow far more exclusive and exotic. And, having been to Indonesia last year and spent a lot of time in trains, as well as walking through towns and cities and mosques, I am fascinated by the white, soapy corridors of what perfumes are considered acceptable/desirable for men in non-western societies. While there is of course plenty of mindless macho on offer in these shops, as there is anywhere else, it seems to me that there is also far more room to manoeuvre olfactively in Muslim cultures; men are supposed to smell of flowers when they enter the gates of heaven; cleanliness is most definitely a virtue. And the hair creams you can buy, like the one I drenched my head in on Saturday night, Parachute, just take me back to the spacious architecture of these pristine buildings and the smell of their outside wash rooms; inalienably foreign, and new to me, yet right.
Soapier, even, than soap, so potently fresh; gleaming, like just-polished marbled corridors. Not like detergents, or laundry musks, but white-robed extraits de parfum of savon a l’Arabe: a scent that reminds me completely of my hotel room in Jakarta, of the cool stone floors, the heat outside, the call to morning prayer; a simple, but heartfully pleasing smell that graces the head most elegantly, beautifully.
While the veils of almond, rose muskiness rose up from my clothes with the Bakhoor Al Arais, and the sensual benzoin skin kisses from La Rose De Rosine floated about just so, every time I turned my head on Saturday night on the streets of Japan’s second biggest city, it was all delightfully offset by this trip through foreign lands and other cultures for which, at least on the scent level, I feel I have the most profound affinity. Mmmmm……
And with that, this perfume maniac went off into the cold, rainy night. Happy to be with his friends and to be alive; to be surrounded by the sights and sounds of the city, of people enjoying themselves, to talk and enjoy the pounding music; but also happily alone internally, to be wrapped up in thought; deliciously snug in scent.
The Black Narcissus 
What a good start to my Monday morning. I can relate to all of it. I went to an interactive workshop from Nicola Pozzani teaching us about fragrance in Saudi Arabia in Milan recently. I love rose on a man. Love, Val x
What was the essence of what she or he was saying? That they just love and slap it on like there is no tomorrow?
Sometimes on a weekend I just need that approach, and thankfully on Saturday night it worked an absolute treat!
I think this was an excellent way to talk about your Dubai stopover! Who needs an entire post – I am just picturing “the hunks at the security checks emanating sweat and delicious (if extraordinarily intense) oudhs” and I know exactly what you mean about how the people here in the Middle East just GET perfume. I will have to try that Swiss Arabian scent. Sadly, I have not gotten into the local lines (not counting Amoauge) as much as I should -so many to try and so little time. It seems that the ones I have tried, for the most part, are not really for me. Although I have found some Abdel Samad Al Quarashi oils/attars that I really enjoy. The place I try them the most is the airport – I guess they have you as a captive audience and, as you mention, how much of the commerical “ouds” can you really take before you search out something better?
Sometimes I miss the days of having all evening to prepare for a night out. Little kids mean you have maybe half an hour before the babysitter arrives to throw something together 🙂 Hope you had fun even as the “token handicapped” person!
I did, and thanks for asking. I suppose there is a certain fun element in throwing it all together last minute, but there is also, as you say, something gloriously self-absorbing about just lying, immersed in the bath with music on and letting the process flow.
If I go to Dubai airport again (hopefully not; I do NOT want to repeat that flight pattern to Tokyo! but it has to be said it was much cheaper) I will definitely spend more time with the genuine Arab perfumes. The YSL miscreants et al will not be on my radar.
Or better yet, take a day or two to stop in Dubai and I will show you the real good stuff (not as good as your flea market finds but, interesting stuff at least…) 🙂
I would LOVE it, and may yet be tempted!
He. The event was titled “Saudi Arabia Kingdom of Odours. In a nutshell – the importance of fragrance in all aspects of their lives. The incense that they burn in their homes, each home having their own special mix, the spices used in brewing coffee, again, mixed to their own preferences. No bathroom is without eau de cologne, used after washing your hands. The incredible oils, ouhd, of course, and rose. Especially rose. The epitome of masculinity. We got to sniff all of the aforementioned things and then to share our thoughts on how they made use feel. Nicola works a lot in Dubai and lectures in Milan and Bern. Teaching people to use their senses. How to communicate with fragrance, perfume to enhance business projects ……
He made us laugh ….. apparently the youth there, and there are many something like 60% of the population are under 20, use all the traditional oils and then top it off with D&G. Aaaaaaargh!!!!! Western perfumery is very desirable there.
Hope that all makes some kind of sense. Back to my peanut butter cookie dough, featuring a hefty wallop of Tahitian vanilla extract. 🙂 xxx
Yah!
I just tasted my homemade sugar suffused with Tahitian vanilla beans and am loving it.
What you say makes perfect sense to me. It is obvious that western brands look and smell more upbeat and contemporary to the local younger populace but at least they are layering it…I just love the whole approach. The genuine love for it all. Although I suppose it could be said that in a way it is culturally imposed. You WILL smell of perfume, even if you hate it (ie. the direct opposite of how it is (not) done here in ol’Japan…
Dearest Ginza
How deliciously you describe the ritual of planning, bathing, robing, perfuming… all ready for the performing.
Long ago, when time was a luxury in seemingly endless supply. Friends and I would spend Fridays and sometimes Saturday mornings too on Portobello Road, when it was a flea market and not a tourist fly trap. Searching out what to wear that big night out. The day and evening itself would be spend in a complicated series of grooming ceremonies: hair, skin, scent. Adjusting and refining the outfit as we went along, the more extravagant the better to ensure that we wouldn’t languish in a night club queue too long before being asked back on a guest list or, heaven forfend , go unnoticed at a party.
Mad hatters’ toppers, pink turbans encrusted with costume jewels and paired with flared pinstripe suits. The latest trainers in the gaudiest suedes… and the scents.
Opium, in the original, No. 5 dressed in Roman togas another time, endless Gucci Rush, because, well because.
Today the clothes are calmer, but, reading your wonderful piece has made me realise the perfumes got bigger to compensate.
Thank you for the memories.
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
And thank you for the Beauty.
Dearest Ginza
Oh… and so submerged was I in reflection that I forgot to say I rather like that rose-ruled house too. Perhaps it is the reputation of their Palais Royal neighbours that keeps them in the shade?
Oh, and soap shops… what is it with scented soaps, especially the ‘handmade; sort?. In Charleston last year I bought a bundle as presents and have yet to bring myself to part with them…
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
I think I could be paid in soap. I adore it.
I have three Rosines…une Folie, une Zeste and Flamenca and I rarely wear any of them. I will have to revisit.
All kind of nice, but I can see how you might neglect them…
Neil-your post is the perfect mate to a cup of coffee after a busy Easter weekend. Read through it twice. Swoon. “The hunks at the security checks emanating sweat and delicious (if extraordinarily intense) oudhs.” Curiously, after they’ve arrived in America they lose that wonder trait of perfumery and Westernize to the point of being totally disinfected of any smell. One of the most attractive qualities of the people of the Middle East and say India, is their diet which produces that marvelous smell of sweat of which you write. Coupled with all favorite perfumes, it makes for a depth that truly is breathtaking.So happy you’ve recaptured your Muse as I live for these posts during my straight-jacket, corporate day-to-day.
And delighted to see your return. I was worrying you had disappeared.
I am quite surprised at your ability to be social in public and hold conversations with people while having this whole other inner world/monologue (olfactologue?) of strong, sensual undercurrents running in parallel. I identify with it, for sure, but admire your discipline in putting your descriptions down on paper (well, a blog) for everyone to share! That was beautifully intimate, joyous and honest!
Thankyou for this interesting compliment. Interesting, because I think of myself as entirely without discipline. It’s all about impulse and instinct: something appears in my mind and I just have to write it.
And the whole process is mildly traumatic while being equally pleasurable: I never know what people will or won’t like,whether it’s too self absorbed/obsessed or whether that is what readers want more of, whether I have gone too far with florid or made up language, or the opposite, if it’s too boring. But I just go ahead with it anyway. It’s definitely strange, revealing oneself in public, but also keeps the emotional and psychological chakras wide open, and that I love.
I suppose the only discipline comes on the days when I have enough time to properly hone and edit the language to something I am pleased with, but then I also think that too much striven for ‘flawlessness’ can be dull. So I just leave it, like today’s wisteria mess that I had no time to edit at all as I was going to be late for work.
Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting. It is much appreciated.
The pleasure of wearing perfume may be yours, but the pleasure of reading your writing is all mine, believe me 🙂
Please don’t ever stop being this honest- it is absolutely refreshing to hear/read about an unabashed sensualist/hedonist without the wrappings of faux-polite language.
“Happily alone internally, wrapped up in thought, snug in scent”. Yes! That’s the best. 🙂
Another joyful read! This post is making me excited and looking forward to a Saturday night out (or Friday, who know?).
I love how you prepared yourself for scents and layered different fragrances! I was contemplating whether I should get fragrance-free/0-additive shampoo and shower gel, so that my smell could just be purely perfume!
Though the thought of becoming Grenouille terrifies me!
Hope you had good Easter and a great day x
The thought of being Grenouille THRILLS me
😀 I must tell Madame Persolaise about your take on the hunks at the airport. I’m sure she’d be inclined to agree.
Well done on picking up the Swiss Arabian. By no means do I know their full range, but I’ve often been impressed by the things I’ve sniffed from them.
And yes, Dubai most definitely ‘gets’ perfume 🙂
Arab hunks….don’t even get me started. And Swiss Arabian…I wish I had gone further.
Reblogged this on The Black Narcissus and commented:
HOW THIS SCENT STARVED PATIENT LONGS FOR NIGHTS LIKE THIS
OMG, what a gem of prose. I could have read it 20 times instead of 2. I could picture your preparation for that night and also sensed that I could smell you!
Just found out today that I need to stay in hospital for almost two more weeks than I thought. Disappointed but I know I am not ready for Wednesday. Starting to walk but nowhere near confident enough yet.
Perfume is really looming in my brain now, though. I am craving it! This scent-dripping Dionysia will just have to suffice for the time being….
I know all fellow perfume maniacs can relate to this extreme pleasure…..
I can totally relate. Whenever I am stressed, a little down or trying to recover from something very major, I feel comforted to know that I can put it all on the back burner just by selecting one of many perfumes in my collection and spraying myself with complete abandonment.
I am sorry for your disappointment but I think it may be a good thing. You have been in a surreal world for several weeks (not counting the previous months of anxiety) and although most of us loathe being in a hospital, it is better to stay until you are up to being back into your own world. Just repeat to yourself…this too shall pass.